'Otto Carius' Early Tiger 213 of sPzAbt 502, Estonia, 1944' skin by Tiger_VI | download here

Otto Carius in 1944. Picture by Bundesarchiv.

Otto Carius was born on the 27th of May, 1922, in Zweibrucken, Germany. Soon after graduating from high school, World War 2 broke out, and Carius volunteered for the infantry. After about a year of experience as a loader in a Panzer 38(t) on the Eastern Front, Carius underwent an Officer Training Course, which he successfully completed, being assigned as the commander of the 2nd Company in the 502nd Tank Battalion immediately after, in April 1943.

Equipped with the new Tiger tanks, the 2nd Company participated in various operations on the Eastern Front. One of the more notable of these was at the village of Malinava, near Dunaburg, on the 22nd of July 1944. Keeping his eight Tigers held back in reserve, Carius and his First Lieutenant, Albert Kerscher, took a Kubelwagen to scout the village for enemies.

Seeing as it was already occupied by only a handful of Russian tanks, Carius and Kerscher sent their Tigers in and destroyed four T-34 that were guarding the village. The six remaining tanks then joined them, and all eight of the Tigers successfully defended the village from the Russian reinforcements which totaled 17 tanks, one of them being the new IS-1.

Only two days later, Carius was scouting the terrain with a few of his men, hidden in a Panzer trench, with the rest of his company waiting a little distance behind. Suddenly, they were ambushed by both Russian infantry and tanks. Carius was shot in the leg by machine gun fire, and was unable to move. He sent one of his men back to inform the rest of the company, while Carius stayed in the trench, presumably waiting to be killed.

Carius took one more bullet in the leg, another in his arm, and two in the back before seeing a Russian officer standing over him. Realising that Carius was a decorated officer, his first instinct was to capture him. However, since there weren't enough resources to do that, the Russian officer shot him in the neck, expecting it to be a killing blow. However, after Carius’s company managed to beat the ambushers back, Carius was examined by a field medic, when it was discovered that he was miraculously still alive.

Carius' Tiger 213 in War Thunder

During his recovery, Carius was transferred to the 512 Heavy Antitank Battalion, which was under training for the new Jagdtigers, equipped with powerful 128mm guns. On the 8th of March, 1945, Carius’s company, which still hadn’t completed its training, was sent to the front line, near Siegburg.

Carius noted that everybody knew that the war was lost, and that at this point he was given orders to only keep the Allies as far away from the German border as possible.  On the 15th of April, facing untenable pressure from the Allies, Carius’s company surrendered to the United States Army. 

After the war, Carius studied pharmacy at the University of Heidelberg. After getting his degree, he opened a pharmacy shop called the Tiger Apotheke, in honor of the Tiger tank, which he ran until 2011. Otto Carius died on the 24th of January, 2015, aged 92.

Author: Sergej 'NuclearFoot' Hrustic

With one of the upcoming Updates, we will include "217" Tank Number &
Emblem of the 512th Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion to War Thunder:

 

Decal by Branislav 'InkaL' Mirkov

Otto Carius has been credited with destroying around 150 tanks, many of them with the notorious Tiger tank. Tell us your tally with the Tiger in the comments and watch this phenomenal video from Fabulous shepArd! 

The War Thunder Team